[Peace-discuss] Chomsky…

[Karen Aram]

I agree that Chomsky’s statement:

"The left is awful on this. For one thing, a large part of the left is pro-Assad. [In those circles], you can't criticize Assad, but you know he's a monstrous war criminal. And anyone who criticizes Assad is joining the US imperialists. That's just ludicrous. I mean, whatever you think about this event, Assad is certainly responsible for the overwhelming mass of the atrocities. And it's a horror story. So that's part of the left. In fact, that’s about the only visible part of the left.”

is ludicrous, and does not sound like Chomsky at all.

What happened to the man, who would point out that, “a dictator, a criminal of another nation isn’t the business of the USG or people, it’s the business of the people of that nation.” Chomsky’s assertion that those who are on the left support Assad because we don’t want to say or hear anything negative about him, is just wrong.

Many of us on the left don’t believe we should be supporting US propaganda of war by vilifying Assad, as an excuse to support the “rebels” using “ Assad is a monster” to justify US war and killings. When we hear “so called socialists” or leftists making this argument against Assad, it becomes obvious they are joining mainstream media. Especially when they ignore the history of US interventions and interference in Syria over the years dating back to the seventies.

It’s exactly the same propaganda used to justify interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. etc. “we have to save the people from their monster of a dictator,” generally one we once supported.
Worse monsters and Dictators are currently being supported in other nations now by the US in Africa, Saudi Arabia, etc.,etc.

There is concrete evidence that the US government has been supporting the “rebels,” and that the “rebels” are in fact “terrorists." The likelihood of any legitimate rebels from 2011 against the Assad government having survived is highly unlikely. If they did survive they too have become “terrorists”.

Slaughtering one’s own people, innocent women and children, killing those of a different religion, murdering journalists, etc.,etc. are not the acts of legitimate rebels. They are the acts of terrorists. There is a fine line between rebellion, uprisings against a government, and out and out terrorism, but most true “rebels” know the difference and are unlikely to cross it.

Everything else Chomsky said is “spot on.” Maybe he is being given wrong information by his assistants?



On Apr 24, 2017, at 21:16, Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:

Chomsky again. http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/40319-noam-chomsky-us-is-the-most-dangerous-country-in-the-world

He says a lot of truly alarming things about current dangers, most being obvious to those who keep track of what’s been going on. But his demonization of Assad, in this piece and elsewhere, and of those who recognize that Assad is likely supported by most Syrians at this stage, that he is trying to keep Syria together, is disgusting and dismaying. The criticisms of him on this issue must be getting to him, and, stubborn as he is, he just gets more extreme, even defending possible attacks on the Syrian regime by the US..

—mkb
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